In addition,
the total crude oil and petroleum products barrels delivered by pipeline has
also increased by more than 44 per cent, while the natural gas and oil industry
supports 10.3 million jobs across the US economy.

The report also concluded the implementation of a pipeline
safety management system (SMS) was a critical priority for the pipeline
industry in order to effectively improve safety performance.

API-AOPL Pipeline Safety Excellence Steering Committee Chair
Todd Denton, who is also Phillips 66 Pipeline President, said the report shows pipelines remain one of the safest ways
to transport energy, delivering product safely 99.9 per cent of the time.

“Our ongoing safety improvement efforts include implementing
enhanced technologies to evaluate our assets, analysing data and sharing
learnings and best practices as we drive towards the industry goal of zero
incidents,” he said.

“In addition to fewer total pipeline incidents, releases
caused by corrosion or pipe material failures are down 35 per cent and
incidents caused by incorrect operation are down 38 per cent over the last five
years.”

Mr Denton said technology is a main driver of the pipeline
industry’s continuous improvement.

“Ongoing industry-wide research and development initiatives
will test and validate the performance of new ‘smart pig’ inspection tools,” he
said.

“Every year, we continue to improve and apply more advanced
technologies.

“We are using ultrasonic, electromagnetic acoustic wave, and
magnetic flux technologies to find ever smaller issues in pipelines that we can
repair long before they become a problem.

“In 2019, industry-wide efforts will promote wider adoption
of pipeline SMS for companies throughout our industry, and in specific
functions such as construction quality management, inspections and maintenance,
and leak detection programs,” he said.